FFMS Walks the Ensino Superior Cost-Benefit Study Into Lisbon on Thursday 14 May — Each €1 Invested in Higher Education Returns €13.7 in Salary Gains, but Portuguese Families Carry 30% of the Bill, Double the EU Average

The Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos released on Thursday 14 May 2026 the latest of its Estado da Educação series of monographs — a cost-benefit study of higher education in Portugal that lands two contradictory headline numbers in the same morning. On the returns side: each €1 invested in a Portuguese ensino superior degree generates, on average, €13.7 in over-a-career salary gains for the graduate, the highest cost-benefit ratio in the European Union. On the burden side: Portuguese families pay 30% of the institutional financing of the public higher-education system, more than double the EU average and the highest family share in the bloc.

The €13.7 number explained

The 13.7-times figure is built on the OECD Education at a Glance methodology that measures direct costs (tuition, fees, materials), indirect costs (foregone earnings during the study period) and downstream returns (the wage premium licenciados earn over secondary-school graduates across the working life). Portugal scores at the top of the EU because the absolute costs are unusually low — Portuguese tuition is among the cheapest in the EU and indirect costs are compressed by the relatively low secondary-school-leaver wages that students forego — while the lifetime wage premium for licenciados is broadly in line with the EU average. The combination produces what the FFMS authors describe as a 'razão custo-benefício muito elevada' on the individual financial calculation.

The 30% family-share number explained

The financing-mix figure runs in the opposite direction. In 2022 the Portuguese state spent on average $14,155 per higher-education student — roughly €12,000 — which is 35% below the EU average. Of that bill, families covered roughly one-third through propinas, taxas and emolumentos. That 30% family share is the highest in the EU-27. Most member states sit between 8% and 18%; the Nordic block runs below 5%. The propinas máximas for licenciaturas are frozen at €697 for the 2025/26 academic year and will rise to €710 from 2026/27 under the descongelamento that the government legislated in September 2025.

What the FFMS authors recommend

The report calls the current Portuguese model — a partilha de custos that combines public funding with student-borne propinas — 'insuficiente' as a structural arrangement, even though the individual return on investment remains high. The recommendation set runs in three lines: a recalibration of the propinas regime by family income, with the higher-income decis paying a larger share to free public spending for the lower deciles; an expansion of the bolsa-de-estudo system to track the propinas changes — 'qualquer mudança nas propinas tem de ser acompanhada de bolsas de estudo'; and a structural reweighting of the public financing envelope toward the polytechnic sub-system, where the cost-benefit gap is sharpest.

The political read

The study lands the same week the Conselho Nacional de Educação issued its unanimous parecer against the Ministério da Educação e do Ensino Superior project diploma rewinding the access-to-higher-education exam regime. The two files are not the same — the access-rewind is about how students enter the system, the FFMS report is about how families and the State pay for it once they are in. But they will be read together at the Comissão de Educação at Parliament during the late-May discussion. The Ministry under Fernando Alexandre has not yet commented on the FFMS recommendations; the OE2027 framework letter is due in mid-July, and the propinas-by-income mechanism the FFMS proposes would have to land in that envelope to take effect for the 2026/27 academic year.

Sources: FFMS — Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos cost-benefit study, 14 May 2026; Observador; RTP; Público.